Reviews

Folkridge. Rob Craine

Kevin,

Really good to meet you at Folkridge on Saturday and thanks for all your help. You played a great couple of sets and were a real unexpected highlight of the day for many people.

Many thanks again.

Keep in touch.

BBC Gloucestershire Stephen Morris reviews Silver Campervan

Can it really be three years since Silver Campervan were last reviewed on these very pages? Surely not.
Maybe it's just as well that Silver Campervan have a new EP out.
It's called 'Simplest Tycoon' and it's a rather beautiful thing: six tracks of gentle summery-ness wrapped up in digital form to beguile and bedazzle you.
Back then, this writer's comparisons were all with Nick Drake, the default benchmark for all acoustic, indie folk artists.
But it's a fairly reductive observation which fails to note some of the nuances within Silver Campervan's music.
The nevertheless distinctive sound of these fans of vintage holiday vehicles embraces a whole catalogue of bands and artists who have inspired them - or just sound a bit like them.
If you like this, a particular astute mp3 player (should such a thing exist) might suggest you try Kathryn Williams, Roddy Woomble, Cousteau, Syd Barrett, REM, Kings of Convenience, Supergrass or Ralph McTell.
This band are the very definition of lazy summer evenings.
Imagine the scene: post-barbecue, after the funk and soul compilations have been done to death, the party's turned to the chilled out stage, chilled drinks are being drunk.
Someone's even put the kettle on.
'Wistful'
Now imagine the ideal music to soundtrack the night, as you and your friends wistfully describe plans for holidays and memories of good times from the past.
That's right: you're thinking of Silver Campervan and your brain should probably be paying the PRS fees to the band RIGHT NOW.
The lyrics to the sextet of songs is as wistful as the music accompanying them.
There are songs tinged with regret over love's labours lost ('Circus Song' and 'Long Drive Home'), but the overwhelming theme of the EP is one of the aforementioned wistfulness: of dreams and desires and plans to put the past - maybe a complex, confusing past - firmly where it belongs.
"The simple life is the richest life" runs the chorus of 'Little Bird" over a rich, sumptuous 'cello.
It could be the record's motto - a record which, after all, features the word "simplest" in its title.
'Smoker's Delight' is all about simple things: "sailing away for some land where we can be homely" or hanging "around in city parks and watch[ing] thunder clouds just float away".
'Western Corner' also features dreams of simplicity, this time in contrast to the dreary repetitiveness of the working week: "Sunday is my favourite day/sleeping my life away/my eyes wide open", while 'Alcohol's Need' states the simplest of dreams: "we can watch the flowers grow".
Silver Campervan's gentle, soothing folk-indie songs have changed little in style in the past three or four years. Nor should they.
Each track is a beautiful, intangible moment in sound: delicate and as light as a bubble, though rich and weighted in substance.
The minimalist line up: gentle guitar, a couple of vocals and the occasional cameo of a 'cello or a melodica shows that less is definitely more.
A beautiful, beautiful thing.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/gloucestershire

24/7 Magazine

Amiable three piece, Silver Campervan deliver a delicate combination of melancholic and optimism in long player, Shade. Kevin Howlett pens some insightful and often poignant lyrics, and Amy Gardner’s beautiful vocals stop the band drifting into any musical greyness. There are times when Silver campervan become somewhat predictable but their imagination and observation of life’s simple pleasures puts them above the average clutch of the new millennium songsters. 4/5

Thank you letters

Dear Kevin

Thank you and your team so much for a very enjoyable performance last night, and Barnaby was very grateful to have been involved, he really enjoyed the whole experience. It was obvious how much work had gone into it, so a big well done.

Please let us know if there is anything like Bandit going on at other schools that you may know of.

All the best

Rebecca Wilson

Dear Kevin

So sorry it has taken me so long to get around to sending you this email, but here goes. Lois has had a ball with you guys over the October half term and it is something she is still talking about, so, firstly, a very big thank you to you and all your colleagues for putting on such a fantastic weekend, The CD came the other week and Lois was so pleased, thanks so much for this. I would like to know if some of the photographs that were taken over the weekend are available as Lois is also keen to have some photographs of her fellow Bandit4’s. Also, she would also be very interested in knowing if we can get hold of the video that was made for U and The Plastics, as she starred in both!

If there is any chance of being able to get hold of these copies, I would gladly pay, or donate as appropriate.

Hope you are looking forward to your well-earned rest over the holidays and I hope to hear from you soon.

Kind regards, Christina Hinder

Mum to future drum star, Lois Hinder!

Christina Hinder

Email: christina.hinder@parallelblue.co.uk

www.parallelblue.co.uk

Stonehouse Town Council

Re: Bandit 3 Rock Workshop

I refer to the above and the Town Council grant made to enable young people in Town to participate in, and benefit from the opportunity to compose and make music with industry professionals.

The feedback I have received from those involved has been that they benefited greatly from the experience and as a result confidence levels have risen in those people which matches exactly the reasons the grant was made.

Congratulations to all those concerned.

Kind regards

Richard Lacey

Great job tonight – well done to all involved. Thoroughly enjoyed the entertainment and venue. The sounds and the images worked very well together.

Hope you get a break now – although I guess you thoroughly enjoyed the three days too!

Gary Watson

Head Teacher Maidenhill School

Dear Kev

It has been an absolute pleasure working with you! You have put in a fantastic amount of effort well over and above anything I would have expected. You have changed and improved the lives of hundreds of children. The Music tech has been a fantastic success because of you! The bandit project is amazing because of you! Many Many thanks for everything and very best wishes

Camilla

Dear Gary,

Just a quick e-mail to thank you and your staff for the 2 fantastic music sessions we have enjoyed this week.

The cluster G&T music tech workshop with Kevin on Tuesday was excellent! The children went back to their (10) primary schools buzzing and excited – clutching their CDs and desperate to share their music with the rest of their class. The parent who came with me was extremely impressed with the facilities, and with Kevin’s thorough expertise and gentle manner. On a personal note, I haven’t visited Maidenhill for 3 years – the  attitudes, manners and behaviour of your students that I saw and met this week speaks volumes…

Yesterday’s visit from your Bandit students was testament to their musical skill and talent, and underlined what confident, well-mannered, articulate, thoroughly delightful young people Maidenhill produces. Our Y6s were thoroughly inspired by their music and talent. You must be very proud of them.

Yours

Fiona Arnison

Lakefield CE Primary

Head teacher

Review: Silver Campervan BBC Gloucestershire

Stephen Morris puts the grey clouds behind him and finds a little bit of summer in his review of 'Shade', the debut album from Stroud unsigned band 'Silver Campervan'.
iWell, it wasn't much of a summer, was it. The wettest August in years and even when it wasn't raining it wasn't exactly the best weather ever.
"Silver Campervan have harnessed just a little sunshine and make it go a very long way."
Stephen Morris
Not much chance for sunbathing, picnics or leisurely sun drenched walks in the countryside.
Less still the opportunity for warm summer evenings spent gathered round a barbecue.
Which is a pity, because if ever there was a local Gloucestershire act whose music epitomised a warm summer evening it's Silver Campervan.
The band's song 'Travelling' was featured on the August 2008 edition of the Introducing show, but they have a whole album of tracks where that came from.
The Bare Necessities
The music on 'Shade' is stripped down to the bare essentials: acoustic guitars and vocals.
But for the brief appearance of a melodica (an instrument probably last seen in your childhood toy box), that's it: gently strummed guitars and beautiful harmonies between the voices of Kevin Howlett, Chris Scott and Amy Gardner.
Inevitably comparisons will be made to Nick Drake.
Any musicians whose preference is for acoustic folk-ish guitar will find themselves gauged against such a yard stick (if it's not heresy to reduce such a legend to a mere unit of measurement).
East Meets West
Penultimate track 'Travelling' is a prime example. The introduction isn't too far removed from something you might have heard on 'Five Leaves Left'.
What follows is something many times removed from the singer-songwriter from Tanworth in Arden as the lyrics reference Moscow and the music heads towards Spaghetti Western territory.
All you need to complete the dusky Western feel is a Mariachi trumpet or two.
It is this eclectic management of styles that makes Silver Campervan more than a group of Drake copyists.
They are just as likely to remind listeners of Simon and Garfunkel ('Mr Black's Special Bourbon Drip'), Ben and Jason ('Saturday') or Scottish super group The Reindeer Section ('You Like the Way I Move on the Dance Floor').
Road Trip
The highlight of the album is 'Mr Black’s Special Bourbon Drip'.
While most of the other tracks on the album are meditative songs, almost whimsical in their references to migrating birds, butterflies and stepping into the rain, this song has a greater sense of urgency to it.
There's even something of a story to it (in between 'Mrs Robinson' style instrumentals) about life on the open road, the search for adventure and the perils involved in finding it.
It's a plot you might just find in a Coen Brothers movie.
Lords and Ladies of the Dance
Elsewhere, the songs on 'Shade' have a gentler pace to them. Even songs with lyrics such as "I danced my life away" ('Saturday') and "You like the way I move on the dance floor" are calmer and smoother than you might think.
If there's any dancing to be done, it's a gentle sway rather than a polka, tango or trip to the mosh pit.
There's much talk of a journey to be travelled (the 'Southern Line' is mentioned on two songs) or a being taken (most obviously 'Travelling').
Even 'Mr Black's Special Bourbon Drip' is a road trip of a song.
The metaphor is slightly obvious and, perhaps overdone, but less concerning when you allow the music to wash over you.
Asleep in the Back
Saying that an album is great to fall asleep to may not sound like the greatest compliment of all time.
But music is designed to fit all kinds of moods - and what else are lullabies for?
In 'Shade' you will find the perfect accompaniment to the final hours of a summers day - or even an autumnal one.
So what if we didn't have the sunniest of summers? On this album Silver Campervan have harnessed just a little sunshine and make it go a very long way

http://www.bbc.co.uk gloucestershire

Steve Lamacq (Music Week)

Blooming Cellar, whose single Purity Teen is a pretty thing, looks like Walthamstow High Street with a bit of late Eighties Leytonstone pop chic thrown in. The singer could be a bit of a star with his slightly faraway stage presence – and their gig at the Laurel Tree featured a few nicely bittersweet sparklers which sound quite neat in the autumn.

Peter Whitehead, GIG UK (National Band Register magazine)

What an intriguing way to right a song! ‘Mr Portilda’ is a blank verse poem about boring John Portilda who dreams all day, has ass holes for friends and can’t even smoke dope in case his girlfriend finds out and tells him off. Somehow they’ve managed to put it to music really effectively with a really catchy tune – a hit in our office. The music’s verging on country, solid and harmonic like the Bellamy Brothers, but the words are superb. ‘Ben’s Magic Red Scarf’ is about the singer’s friend who has life on a plate, including loads of horny girlfriends which he reckon is due to his ‘right on’ clothes and, in particular, his magic red scarf. Again they’ve got a really catchy chorus so that’s another three points for an away win. ‘Sea’ gets all serious and depressive and the joking’s definitely over. Highly autobiographical stuff, one suspects, but what a great band. Could it happen, I wonder?

The Fly Magazine

Retrospective, insomuch as they take on board early Lemonheads and late XTC, Blooming Cellar have an English ness that nestles easily in the ears and compliments the coming summer months.

Halloween Let’s rock

Teenagers took a spooky theme for their Halloween half-term rock workshop. Musical youngster who joined in the three days of artistic fun at Maidenhill School in Stonehouse wrote songs about vampires and bats. Kev Howlett a performing arts technician and organiser of the event said: ” Some were rocky and others were more like the Eagles.” “It’s the fifth time we’ve done it so we called Halloween Bandit 5.” A performance and party at Stroud Subscription Rooms ended the fun on Saturday night.’

Getting a real buzz as we rocked the house The Citizen

Musicians in Stroud got their first taste of superstardom thanks to a recent initiative. The three-day Bandit 3 project saw young people from across the district get together to perform and compose music. After assembling as Maidenhill School during half term, the project ended with the bands involved performing at a special show at the Subscription Rooms to a crowd made up of friends and family. Organiser Kevin Howlett said this – the third since the project began – was a great success. “All of the students were so well behaved,” he said. “I’ve had letters from parents and those who took part saying they’d like it to happen again so we’re certainly hoping it will. “it’s a great chance for them to extent their musicianship and to learn how to perform and be creative.” He thanked all sponsors who helped stage the event. Among those who turned out for the workshops was guitarist Harry Pizzey, 12 who formed a band – The Undecided – with some friends from Marling School for the project. The friends wrote, developed and rehearsed their song called Run Away before they took to the stage. Harry, who lives in Whiteshill, told us about his experience… “I was a little nervous about going, as I’ve never played in a band before, just sitting in my bedroom at home practising. “But from the very first day, it was really great, I was in band with others I know from Marling School and we got on really well. “We got lots of help in the whole process, but we had plenty of time to work on it ourselves and really make it our song. “On the last day, a team worked with us on making a film backdrop for our performance, which looked really great on stage. It felt really professional. “I loved playing on stage – I through we did really well and all that practicing paid off. “I felt a real buzz as I walked off the stage. It was great actually playing in a band, and I hope I’ll be going next year. Meanwhile, back to my bedroom for lots more practice.”

John Haylock

 I was in such a good mood i almost enjoyed the Proclaimers , ‘i would walk 500 miles’ etc etc etc. The Divine Comedy headlined and Neil Hanlon, the Charles Hawtry of rock n roll had the crowd eating out of his very posh hands. But my moment of revelation lay in a small tent a few feet away. I wandered into a set by the unlikely named Silver Camper Van … it was beautiful…..all gorgeous vocals and intelligent lyrics married to some lovely tunes; really refreshing… i almost dropped my Fosters. Apparently there is an album …it’s now at the top of my albums i must own list.